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Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Couscous, Onion, and Cheese Croquettes

Well, I punched a dog in the face today.

Yep. I did that. Do I need to turn in my vegan membership card now? I didn't to it intentionally! I was excited to see him and he was excited to see me, I bent down to pet him as he leaped up to lick my face, and my hand and his face met explosively in the middle. If we had been in an classic Batman episode, a big POW would have popped up. He yelped, I apologized to him in the most high-pitched voice I had ever heard come out of me, and then it was all over and we carried on with the pettings. Nobody was injured, but the look he gave me shall remain engraved in my memory for all eternity. "How could you do this to me? I trusted you."

Let's assume that my vegan membership card is not going be revoked and let's make some vegan couscous croquettes! Or cousquettes?

This is actually a Wing It, Don't Fling It post! I had some leftover couscous and a baked onion that needed to be used up urgently, so I mixed the two together along with some Follow Your Heart cheddar shreds and Daiya mozzarella shreds and turned it all into crispy little croquettes. Because I already had my ingredients precooked, this is going to be more of a formula than a strict recipe.

I mixed everything together in a microwaveable bowl and nuked it until the cheese had become soft and stringy. Then I stirred everything well to form a sort of sticky mix. My couscous was already seasoned, but if it had been plain couscous I probably would have thrown some herbs or other flavorful goodies in there. Then when the mix was cool enough to handle I shaped it into little logs. The logs were then dipped in some almond milk, and then rolled in a heavy coating of seasoned breadcrumbs. Then I pan-fried them in a bit of oil. I was generous with the oil because I wanted the breadcrumbs to be nice and crispy. I pan fried all the sides until they browned, which took about eight minutes. That was it!

This would probably work with rice or quinoa as well.

Can you bake them? Yes! I baked two just so I could report back to you. About 15 minutes, rotating them every five minutes or so, at 400 degrees did the trick. They are more delicate and likely to break when they are baked than when they are pan fried.

So, that's what happened to my questionable leftover couscous. It became cousquettes!

Now for today's cute. Do you like comics? Do you like cute stuff? Do you like rabbits? Then I am about to impart some exciting news unto you. Those of you who have been around here since 2008 will undoubtedly remember "Rabbit." Rabbit used to have a food blog that will forever be my favorite of all time, and every now and then she would treat us to one of her "Friday Features," which were these adorable stories about Rabbit and "The Veggiesaurus." Now the artist formerly known as Rabbit (currently known as Humey) has started a new blog that is all about funny and adorable stories. You must check it out! It's called "humey toons" and it has just recently launched, so it still has that nice new-blog smell. Here is a sampling. Find more at humeytoons.com!